


You never used to shy away from me

by Magnificentsultanas99



Category: Muhteşem Yüzyıl | Magnificent Century, Muhteşem Yüzyıl: Kösem | Magnificent Century: Kösem (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29063487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnificentsultanas99/pseuds/Magnificentsultanas99
Summary: CW- small reference to self harm
Relationships: Handan/Halime
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	You never used to shy away from me

**Author's Note:**

> CW- small reference to self harm

Handan regarded the city in front of her with little affection. She adored her balcony for its solitude, rather than the immaculate view of her sprawling kingdom.  
Behind her, she heard a footstep that she knew all too well.

‘Sultanim.’

The expression she wore when she looked at Halime would be interpreted as loathing to most. 

Hate and love are two sides of the same coin.

‘You saw what happened today, didn’t you?’ Handan spoke of her son’s humiliation at the soldier’s banquet.

Almost like old times, when they sat in Mehmet’s garden. Two of his birds twittering in their cage, no one suspected a thing. 

‘Yes. You won’t believe me, but I was scared for you and our sultan. I prayed for you.’ Halime said. 

She felt genuine pity as she watched Handan’s tense, rigid back. 

Handan scoffed, concealing a flicker of pleasure. She sat on her bench, regarding Halime and Haci with as much derision as she could muster. 

‘I’ve compiled a list sultanim. Of Safiye’s closest confidantes. With my knowledge, and your power, no-one can stop us.’ 

Halime rolled back her sleeve slightly to pull out a scroll. The beginnings of a jagged scratch traced her wrist. Handan’s face went taut with concern, before she could stop it. As Haci handed her the scroll, she nodded at him to leave. 

The page unfurled in her palm. It felt impossibly warm, warm from being close to Halime’s skin. How long did it rest against her body, concealed from everyone’s eyes? 

Halime watched her eyes wonder over the page, her face becoming increasingly irked as she read.  
How she would love to be the scrap of paper in her palm. To feel her fingertips, the heated metal of her ring. Lie under the soft, yet scorching glare of her eyes. 

Halime despised herself for being so utterly, unforgivably weak. 

This is the woman who holds a rope around my sons neck. With every day that goes by, she tightens the noose. 

‘You seem tired, Halime,’

‘You don’t look particularly well rested either, Validem.’ Halime replied cockily.

Handan recalled the times when they told each other everything. Those times got fewer and far between, as the previous sultan claimed them further, and their children were born. Each child, as joyously as they were received by their mothers, felt oddly like a betrayal. Their encounters became more jarred, desperate and complicated. But these meetings were the only thing that truly belonged to them.

Handan shifted slightly on the bench, an indicator that Halime should sit beside her. 

Only Halime had the ability to understand every set of her neck, or arch of her brow. Sometimes, Handan liked to toy with her hapless servant. Let her hand brush hers as she handed her a cup, whisper a request in her ear. The girl will blush furiously, it’ll satisfy the sultana for a while. But it would never come close to Halime’s way of quenching her aching needs. Dervish cared, his eyes oozed oceans of concern. But it was Halime who knew her inside and out, back to front. 

Halime obliged. ‘just this once’ she thought. She’d blinkered her truth until she didn’t know what was real anymore. 

Handan was stronger than most realised. Safiye might see her as the cowering, snivelling Benli haseki. Yet she held the power to unravel Halime; a cold hearted witch, a curse upon the Ottoman dynasty. Even in the heat of rages against the valide sultan, Halime desired her searingly intense touches. The eyes that reminded her of blue-edged flames forced her to be obsequious. 

Handan reached for her scratched wrist, but Halime snaked it away from her. Teasingly? Disgustedly? 

‘You never used to shy away from me.’ Handan said, hurt in her voice.

‘No-one is ‘shy’, Sultanim. We aren’t two young concubines anymore.’ It was painful, like allowing flames to lick her skin, to not let Handan cradle her sore wrist. 

‘Why? Can only the young be allowed to feel fear, or vulnerability? I see what you’re doing to yourself.’ Handan said. 

‘Don’t you have Dervish Pasha to worry about now?’ Halime asked. 

Halime’s insides contorted in jealousy when she saw her face soften with his name. Handan’s feelings for Dervish were simple, easy to discern. The hope of spring, glowing candlelight on pitch black nights. Halime was a rose, a luscious, sweet-smelling blossom. But every time she neared her, thorns pierced her fingers. It was ecstatic, it was stinging. 

When Halime bowed to her in the corridors, smirking, she imagined consuming her. Crushing her in an embrace, compressing her small, taking her into her body. Or perhaps inhaling her- she was sick of the torture of her tantalising scent. Then she could find her, stop her from seeping into the cracks of the palace. 

They loved each other with scathing words, claws, reassuring clasps, soft pecks on foreheads and noses. It was deranged, insane. But it was one of the few things keeping their hearts beating in a world that threatened to snuff them out. So, when Handan reached for her arm again, Halime lacked the strength to slide it away.


End file.
